


Fish and Chips

by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-01
Updated: 2004-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra%20of%20Yore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the final battle in 'Not Fade Away', Spike and Illyria drive on the open road, and Illyria senses something that reminds her of her past humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish and Chips

“Halt.”

Spike slammed his foot on the brakes, and the Viper responded with every bit of precision a car that quality could. The coastline became a still form, rather than the view that had dashed by them for so long. The breeze of his open window and its myriad of scents halted also. He kept it open to savor the rich scent of life; Illyria kept her window closed for similar reason, insisting that this world stunk.

Spike stared at the dark road ahead, the fields and coastline all around them that seemed to stretch on forever. “There an apocalypse ‘m not seein’, Blue?” he asked sarcastically.

Instead of answering, she rose from her seat – only fumbling slightly with these strange ‘seatbelts’ now – and exited the vehicle. With a put-upon sigh, he followed after her.

“That smell…” she commented, her voice distant.

He groaned. Dealing with another of these episodes every thirty miles or so was _not_ his idea of a good time. “What? The ocean?”

She tilted her head to one side, staring far off in the distance. “No. This is a smell I know. This shell recognizes it…” She considered for a moment. “I should find such a scent repugnant, yet latent memories within me find it enticing instead.” She turned to him abruptly. “We shall seek out this scent.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. After all, it wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go. The legions of hell were gone, as were anyone else they knew back in LA. On their own, wandering, with no goal in mind… Why not follow up on Illyria’s whims? Might be amusing for a time.

“All right, then, luv,” he agreed. “C’mon.”

Illyria watched him enter the vehicle once more and sighed. This modern transportation was inelegant, unfitting for a goddess such as herself. She didn’t say such things to him, however, and merely rediscovered the mystery of ‘seatbelts’. She had made that error once, and he had whined very loudly for hours and insisted on invoking some holy concept of ‘carburetors’ to prove the verity of his complaints. She did not wish for a repeat performance.

They pulled from the highway shoulder with a screech of tires and gravel, and she hit the small control that opened the clear glass that had shielded her side of the vehicle from the outer world. “It is to the right.”

He turned at the next available place, sniffing at the air as well, trying to pinpoint what had caught her nose. “Where to now, Blue?”

“Right again. We have passed it.”

She was leading them to a little series of stores around several gas stations. Obviously a small tourist trap, complete with nightlife. It was the most life either of them had seen since leaving LA, and the Viper slowed to a crawl to accommodate the pedestrians who were too drunk on shopping and food and festivities to pay them any mind.

“We’d best park,” Spike finally commented, pulling into the first place he spotted in a turn so sharp that the man in the vehicle ahead of him had begun to protest that his bloody SUV would get banged up. Spike didn’t touch the monstrosity, of course. Sissy vehicle, designed for Americans who had to overcompensate with vehicle size because they didn’t have it where it counted. They didn’t know how to park worth shit, either.

Observing the human ensemble around her, Illyria shifted her form subtly, turning the blue patches on her face the same cream color as the rest of her skin and altering her armor into a style of jeans and shirt that seemed most common among these mortals.

Spike didn’t even blink an eye as they got out. The man in the truck in front of them looked at Illyria confusedly for a second, as if he couldn’t believe the change he’d just seen, but then shook off the oddness as a reaction to her blue-streaked hair. Illyria had been surprised that needn’t change that detail at all to pass for human, even though no humans seemed to possess blue hair.

Spike took her hand, and she let him lead her through the crowds. Frankly, large groups of humans tended to unnerve her. It was rather like watching insects swarm over your home, covering every inch of it in a writhing mass. The scents overwhelmed her and disgusted her, and her body tensed, almost desperate to squash out their insignificant little lives and save this earth once more for the Great Ones of long ago.

Almost as if Spike could sense her thoughts, he pulled her closer against him, warning her against violence by the strength of the arm that surrounded her. She allowed herself to focus on his scent, instead. He was unlike the other creatures of this earth, pleasant to both her nose and eyes. For one moment, she savored him.

They moved out of the crowds quickly enough and into the surrounding wasteland. It was not entirely desert here, this close to the coast, but the land held a hint of what lay further west.

“Can you smell it now?” he asked when they were safely away from the swarms of mankind.

She sniffed the air again. “This way.”

They circled through the darkness together, hand-in-hand even though such physical contact was now unnecessary, locating the source of Illyria’s curiosity from the periphery of the small beach-town.

“There,” she finally pointed.

He’d thought he’d identified the scent by then, but he hadn’t believed it until she pointed. “Fish?” he asked in disbelief.

She considered his question for moment. “Yes, that is the word this shell’s former occupant used to describe this smell.”

“You think _fish_ smells good?” Spike repeated incredulously. “After all our whinin’ about how badly this world stinks?”

“I do not whine,” she insisted, a bit offended. Shaking his hand off, she stalked toward the small building with the bright lights and the smell she sought.

With a growl of frustration, he ran after her, catching her right at the door. It was a small restaurant, Mexican much to his surprise. Other flavors wafted to him now, but from a distance, the fish was the most prevalent.

Illyria’s eyes widened, and their demonic blue shine alarmed the woman behind the counter for a second, before she shook the silly notion off. The mortal mind was once again compensating for the supernatural, coming up with a logical explanation. Contact lenses, Spike would’ve bet.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely.

“I seek fish…” Illyria hesitated, looking at the scrawls on the walls around them. “…Tacos,” she finally added, somewhat perplexed. “Some distant memory seeks out this substance.”

Spike made a gesture behind her, indicating to the woman at the counter that Illyria had hit her head. Although, given the appreciative little smile he got in response, maybe he’d accidentally indicated something lewd. Or maybe the woman at the counter was just desperate. Not his fault he was inevitably the hottest thing to walk through those doors in the last century. He smirked back.

“You got fish tacos?” he practically purred.

The woman behind the counter blushed. “They’re one of our specialties.”

“Then my…er…sister will have some of those.” He caught Illyria’s hand, pulling her back from where she was staring at the white wall with rapt fascination, watching the microbes and bacteria interact.

“For here or to go?” The woman was young – twenty tops – with short golden hair. As she asked that question, she leaned forward on the counter, giving him a good look at her cleavage.

He licked his lips, tempted, but he was busy babysitting a being with divine might. Best not to take chances. “To go.”

“Oh.” Obvious disappointment. “All right.”

She took his money and rung up his order. Spike saved a toddler from Illyria’s persistent demands as to why he was cognitively underdeveloped. Undoubtedly, she’d have been tempted to pry his head right apart to find the source of the problem, if Spike hadn’t pulled her off. She was childlike in her own way, now, unaccustomed to all the oddities of the modern world.

Spike took the bag of tacos with a final smirk and followed Illyria back out into the night. She led him away from the town and the people, high into the hills at the base of the mountains. There were odd rocky outcroppings amidst the landscape now, and she came to an abrupt halt before one, leaning back against it and looking up at the sky.

He caught up with her mere seconds later and looked back down at the village. They were miles away now, surely, but it hadn’t taken them more than a breath to reach this place. Able to function in the human world, yet alien to it, beyond it. He watched Illyria resume her usual form, watching the blue bubble up against her skin once more. Almost like she’d been holding it in all this time, like taking a deep breath and concealing her demon-ness.

“Here.” He handed her the bag.

She removed one of the tacos, unwrapping it slowly and with infinite concentration. That in itself was miracle enough. Unwrapping was another of those concepts she didn’t seem to understand, and many a box, bag, and wrapper had gone right down her throat before he could stop her.

“My shell remembers this process,” she commented softly, as if aware that her actions were odd and that she was possessed with alien memories.

“Fred had a yen for the Mexican,” Spike remembered with only a hint of sadness now.

Illyria blinked slowly at the filled tortilla in her hand. “I remember… A flash, only, a fragment. Charles…” She trailed off, frowned, trying to catch the fleeting glimpse. “She once took Charles to acquire these fish tacos.” A deeper frown. “She was happy…”

“That, she was,” he sighed. He did his best not to think about Fred these days. One of the great advantages to being immortal was that mortal deaths passed by you more quickly. Or dwelled deeper. But Fred had already been two lifetimes ago, and he now had Illyria, and she was every bit as real to him as Fred had once been.

“She shared tacos to indicate affection,” Illyria commented, realizing some small fragment of Fred’s personality, “companionship.”

He smiled slightly at softer memories of the time before.

Carefully, almost uncertainly, Illyria held out the first taco to him. “You share my existence.”

It was a simple statement. Both devoid of emotion and incredibly tender all at once. And he couldn’t help but be flattered. He smiled softly, and she smiled in response when he took the taco. Silly thing, really, two immortal beings who had survived hell itself communing over warm fish tacos. Fitting in a way, though. Because it was little things, tiny details, that kept immortal minds entranced throughout the millennia.

And, together, they ate in silence.


End file.
